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“Yes, but then I have skin in the game. Why are you anxious?” He seems genuinely puzzled.
“I have skin in the game too,” I say quietly, looking down at Leia. “I know I shouldn’t, but I’ve grown very fond of her already. She’s such a sweetie. I’m going to miss her if—when—she goes.”
His lips curve up. “You have a big heart. I guess you were called Aroha for a reason.”
I love the way he says my name, softening the ‘r’, the word tender in his mouth, like a kiss.
The waiter comes over with our coffees. Once he retreats, James has a sip of his, then studies the cup. “I keep thinking that apparently depression is approximately fifty percent hereditary, so there’s a likelihood that Leia will have it too.”
“It also means there’s a 1 in 2 chance she won’t. I would imagine there’s a nature versus nurture element to it, too. Maddie would have watched your mum and copied her behavior to some extent. Leia won’t be able to do that. She’ll grow up emulating the behaviors of the women around her.”
A frown flickers on his brow. He opens his mouth to speak, then stops as something catches his eye. I watch as his expression changes. The friendly guy I’ve been talking to fades away, his spine stiffens, and he morphs into James the stern businessman again.
Two people are approaching the table. One is obviously Bruce Clarke, known as Blue because of his extremely bright ginger hair. He’s average height, stocky, and I guess that when he was younger he could have challenged James with his looks. Now, though, he has the fleshy look of someone who’s overindulged too often. He has thin lips and a hint of meanness about his features. And, worse than that, I can smell marijuana on his clothes. His eyes are red, and something about his manner tells me he’s high. I stiffen, my hand tightening on Leia’s carry seat.
He’s with a woman who’s also overweight, mainly because she’s very short, with long bleached-blonde hair. She also smells of weed. She looks at James with interest, and the interest in her eyes suggests she finds him attractive.
“Blue,” James says tersely, holding out his hand.
Blue shakes it, then glances at me.
“This is Aroha Wihongi,” James states. “She’s looking after Leia at the moment.”
Blue nods and shakes my hand. “This is my wife, Jasmine,” he says.
“Wife?” James says. “You got married?”
“Yeah, a few months ago.”
Jasmine stretches out her hand to shake ours. Next to me, James stiffens, but I’m not sure why.
“Can I get you a coffee?” he asks politely.
“No thanks,” Blue replies. “We won’t be staying long.”
James waits a moment, as if he’s expecting Blue to display at least some sign of grief or to say he’s sorry that Maddie died, but he doesn’t.
“Okay,” James says eventually, his tone clipped and curt. “I can see you don’t want to be here any more than I do, so shall we get straight to business? DI Maddox told me that Maddie called you on the morning of the day she died. Can you tell me about the phone call?”
“She rang to tell me about the baby. She said she’d been giving it a lot of thought, and whether or not I wanted to be involved, she thought I deserved to know.”
“And you arranged to meet?”
“In town, in the afternoon, but she never showed up.”
“What did you do?”
He shrugs. “Went home. I assumed she’d changed her mind.”
“Did you call her again?”
“No.”
“You didn’t want to see your daughter?”
Blue shrugs again.
James’s knee is bouncing next to mine. He’s agitated. “What did you think when she told you that you were a father?”
